Interventions to promote good nutrition and prevent pregnancy among adolescent girls in poor countries can have large benefits in terms of health improvements among these girls, but also in terms of the growth and development of their children throughout their lives. That is the central conclusion of research by Andreas Georgiadis, to be presented at the Royal Economic Society''s annual conference at the University of Sussex in Brighton in March 2018.
His study indicate that adolescence may be a particularly promising time for interventions against maternal and child stunting. In particular, after analysing data on mothers and their children from Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam, the study finds that children of stunted mothers have 16% higher chance of being stunted as infants and of remaining stunted through adolescence.
In addition, children of mothers who gave birth to them during adolescence achieve 2% lower scores in a mathematics test in adolescence. The results also suggest that among adolescent girls with low height for their age when they were 12 years old, on average, half of the height deficit was recovered by age 15 years and that this could be explained by improvements in nutrition.
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In poor countries where child undernutrition is very prevalent, stunting, an indicator of low height-for-age, which is a common measure of poor growth and undernutrition, is one of the major threats to child survival, health, and development.
Studies from both the biomedical and economics literature suggest that poor growth is largely realised during the first 1,000 days from conception (the period up to the age of two), as during this period child growth is particularly responsive to nutrition.
These studies also suggest that there is limited potential for catch-up growth after the age of two, and that this leads to an intergenerational cycle of poor growth and development, where women who were stunted in childhood remain stunted as adults and tend to have stunted offspring. This is why policy interventions to reduce stunting focus on pregnant women and infants up to age two.
Others, however, have argued that adolescence, a period when growth is rapid, presents an opportunity for catch-up growth and remediation of early deficits, particularly for girls. The argument is that adolescence may provide additional entry points for policy to address undernutrition among adolescent girls, but also in the next generation, as in poor countries, many of these girls become pregnant during adolescence.
This is important in particular, as in poor countries, undernutrition and childbearing in adolescence are two of the most prevalent and primary risks to the survival, health and development of young women with potential implications for the growth and development of their children.
Yet, there is little evidence on the extent of catch-up growth during adolescence and the implications of adverse conditions during adolescence, such as maternal undernutrition and pregnancy, for child growth and development. This is important in order to establish how effective interventions during adolescence could be in tackling stunting among women and their children.
This research provides new evidence supporting the idea that adolescence may be a particularly promising time for interventions against maternal and child stunting.
In particular, after analysing data on mothers and their children from Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam, the study finds that children of stunted mothers have 16% higher chance of being stunted as infants and of remaining stunted through adolescence.
In addition, children of mothers who gave birth to them during adolescence achieve 2% lower scores in a mathematics test in adolescence. The results also suggest that among adolescent girls with low height for their age when they were 12 years old, on average, half of the height deficit was recovered by age 15 years and that this could be explained by improvements in nutrition.
Overall, the evidence produced by our study supports that interventions to promote good nutrition and prevent pregnancy among adolescent girls in poor countries can have large benefits in terms of health improvements among these girls, but also in terms of the growth and development of their children throughout their lives.
